Page 149 of Forgotten Desires

“Yes, and while I’ll deny this if you ever repeat it, I’m not much better most days.”

I bite back a laugh. “At least the sickness part is over.”

She groans. “Please don’t remind me.”

Charlotte spent the better part of six months violently ill. I’ve never seen my brother so anxious before. Not that he’s so much better now, but he’s slightly less neurotic.

“Here you are,” Crew says as he comes up behind me, wrapping his strong arms around my middle. “I was looking for you.”

“Seems everyone is today.” I smile, looking up at him from the side. “Charlotte and I were just talking.”

He looks at my sister-in-law. “Your husband was searching for you as well.”

“I’m sure he’s convinced I’m giving birth in the bathroom. Let me go find him.” Charlotte waddles off.

We stay like this for a minute and then he turns me to face him. “I think today went well.”

“It did,” he agrees. “The town seems extremely happy.”

“That’s because you gave them all gifts for coming,” I remind him.

Instead of us getting wedding gifts, we decided to give them. Everyone who is attending received a tablet. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous, but Crew wasn’t hearing it. He said he wanted to show love back to the people who have loved us.

“I find that bribery works because they’re less likely to bring us more stray animals.”

“Doubtful.”

We’ve more than doubled Second Chances Animal Sanctuary since when we first married. I now have a full-time staff that runs it and when we’re here, I get to love on the animals and watch them thrive.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I grin and grip his lapels. “I know what I’m thinking.”

He raises one brow. “Oh?”

“I’m thinking that my husband is so incredibly perfect.”

“And I hoped you were thinking something dirty,” Crew tosses back.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“You never disappoint me, Bee.”

I rise on my toes and kiss him. “Good.”

I rock back and pull my lower lip between my teeth. I have to tell him something that I worry he won’t react well to. Lord knows he has a tendency to overreact to everything when he’s concerned about my safety.

Of course, my husband can read my face and his eyes narrow. “What’s wrong?”

This isn’t exactly how I wanted to discuss things, but I know better than to try to play it off like there’s nothing wrong. He’ll never believe me.

“I need you to not freak out, okay?”

His body tenses. Yeah, this is going to be great. Crew lets out a long breath through his nose. “I’ll try.”

I guess that’s all I can ask for.

“I went to visit the transplant team two weeks ago for my routine visit.”

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